Tag: Trump-Russia

— The Federal News Agency allegedly engaged in attempts to interfere in U.S. elections. Last week it gatecrashed a National Press Club election night party attended by Michael Avenatti: “Putin must be so proud”

Attendees at a National Press Club election night event have become targets of a disinformation campaign by Moscow’s Federal News Agency (FAN), which U.S. federal prosecutors recently linked to Kremlin-backed efforts to interfere in U.S. elections.

The $95 per ticket event, dubbed the Hottest Election Night Party in Washington, boasted an all-star guest list including celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti, who represents porn star Stormy Daniels in two lawsuits against President Donald Trump, and former presidential adviser David A. Keene.

In its indictment of St. Petersburg accountant Elena Khusyaynova in September, the Department of Justice identified FAN as one 12 entities that allegedly “employed hundreds of individuals in support” of Project Lakhta, a multi-million dollar social media influence operation that aimed “to sow division and discord in the U.S. political system.”

Russian government media adviser Alexander Malkevich, who covered the event for FAN, says he travelled to D.C. earlier this month as “an observer in the November 6 elections” as part of a broader effort to help Russia “fight back in the world information war.”

Last week, Malkevich’s reporting of the event was cited by Russian state-owned news outlets including Sputnik News and Ria Novosti as part of a cross-platform media campaign seemingly intended to boost Malkevich’s profile and stir up anti-U.S. feelings in Russia.

The campaign was launched via the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, from which Malkevich chairs a group that advises the Kremlin on media policy. In a press release published on the chamber’s website, Malkevich claimed that he made a speech at the event comparing electoral systems in the U.S. and Russia.

“I am deeply shocked by the level of violations that were committed in states with democratic leadership, where representatives of this party rule,” the website quotes Malkevich as having said. “I know about a completely blatant situation when a public observer from the election commission of New York was removed from the polling station, having learned that she is Russian. And this is despite the fact that she had a document in her hands!”

In an e-mail, the event’s organisers denied that Malkevich made any such speech.

“We did not invite him to speak. Alexander did not give a speech,” said a spokesperson for Alexandria, Virginia-based election tour company Political Events, which organised the event. “We had a banner on the wall in front of our room with a microphone. He must have stood in front and had someone take a photo.”

Subsequent articles on the FAN website ramped up the disinformation tactics.

One article, titled “A porn star lawyer is ready to be president of the United States,” claimed that Malkevich had been physically accosted at the event by members of Michael Avenatti’s entourage.

“[After] Avenatti’s speech, I wanted to talk to him,” said Malkevich. “I was not given such an opportunity: his entourage pushed me back, and in rather strong words said ‘We cannot allow the Russians to spoil the future career of a potential president of the country.'”

Photos from the event do not corroborate Malkevich’s claims, and there have been no additional reports about the alleged incident.

Michael Avenatti (left) / Alexander Malkevich (right)

In an e-mail, Avenatti emphatically denied the unsubstantiated claims.

“This never happened and I don’t travel with an entourage,” said Avenatti. “Putin must be so proud of this nonsense.”

The National Press Club did not return a request for comment.

* * *

Malkevich made headlines in June when he travelled to D.C. to promote USA Really, a self-described “community-supported news” website created by FAN’s editor-in-chief Yevgeny Zubarev “to promote crucial information and problems, which are hushed up by the conventional American media controlled by the establishment and oligarchy of the United States.”

Articles on the USA Really website, such as the anti-Semitic “Star of David spotted amidst migrant caravan: Who’s behind the invasion?,” mirror the same kind of false, misleading, and purposefully offensive content peddled by the Robert Mueller-indicted Internet Research Agency, better known as the Russian troll factory.

To promote the launch of the website, Malkevich had organised a flash mob to take place at the White House on Donald Trump’s 72nd birthday. Things did not go to plan.

Malkevich was forced to cancel the event after his application for a rally permit was rejected. He was subsequently removed and banned from re-entering an office he’d rented for a roundtable discussion on fake news.

In a series of deeply conspiratorial articles, USA Really hinted at a sinister plot by “deep state” security forces to violate its First Amendment rights.

“[There] are forces bent on the suppression of expression and speech – basic 1st amendment stuff here,” claimed an anonymously penned article on the website. “This project hasn’t even officially started yet, but the deep state and the security services have already launched into their standard defamation campaign.”

Shooting the Messenger was unable to locate any deep state officials for comment, and USA Really provided no evidence for its claims other than a screenshot of an e-mail (published on the FAN website) clearly showing that Malkevich had sent his rally request to the wrong government department.

After scooping the story, Shooting the Messenger received a comment from someone at USA Really named Michael, seemingly intended to deter reporters from covering what he described as a “sucker job” written by “some anonymous dude from the internet.”

On Saturday, [investigative writer Dean Sterling Jones] received a diatribe from someone named Michael using a USA Really email address in response to a post he’d written on the group.

“Are you a semicrazy person?” Michael asked, according to a copy of the message provided to The Daily Beast. “WFT is wrong with you? How can you suck so much with fact interpretation?”

Asked about that exchange, Michael, who said he was emailing from Moscow, struck a conciliatory tone. “Actually, I appreciate Dean’s work a lot so I offered her to write to us too,” he wrote, apparently unclear of Jones’ gender. “So I cannot tell you what I objected in her beautiful articles.”

Evidently, the dissuasion effort didn’t work, and by late June Malkevich had landed profiles in NBC News, McClatchy D.C. Bureau, and Foreign Policy, among others. They weren’t exactly flattering either.

“Russian Troll or Clumsy Publicity Hound?” asked Foreign Policy in its article detailing Malkevich’s calamitous attempts to set up shop in D.C.

The New York Times was even less flattering in its assessment of Malkevich, describing the bumbling provocateur as being “more like a Sacha Baron Cohen character than a sinister propagandist.” In that article, Malkevich denied any connection to Russian troll operations, but refused to say who funded the USA Really website.

“I don’t know anybody from so-called troll farms,” he told the Times. “I am [only] interested in cooperation and friendship between our two great countries.”

“You’re really crazy person, not just semicrazy,” he wrote, this time with an IP address placing him in Moscow. “See the doctor for the specific.”

* * *

Less than six months after Malkevich’s U.S. media blitz, USA Really has become ensnared in the F.B.I.’s probe into Russian election interference.

Last month, the website appeared to implicate itself in a vast criminal conspiracy when it loudly proclaimed that Elena Khusyaynova, the indicted St. Petersburg accountant accused of financing Project Lakhta’s election-meddling campaigns, currently works as its chief financial officer.

It’s unclear what USA Really hoped to achieve by the admission, but it appears that investigators are now looking into the website.

According to Russia’s Foreign Ministry, on November 9 Malkevich was briefly detained at a Washington airport and told that USA Really must register in the U.S. as a foreign agent. The USA Really website subsequently posted what it claimed was a search and seizure warrant for Malkevich signed by Virginia district judge Michael S. Nachmanoff.

It isn’t the first time Malkevich has faced scrutiny over USA Really’s ties to the Russian state, but with prosecutors working to uncover an ever-expanding network of dark money, trolls, and oligarchs, it likely won’t be the last.

In the meantime, social media accounts controlled by the infamous Russian troll factory are busy protesting the news of Malkevich’s detainment.

— When the head of Russia’s new disinformation campaign arrived in Washington DC this week, reporters for NBC News and Foreign Policy were there to meet him

Last week, I blogged an original story about Alexander Malkevich, a Russian government policy adviser and head of USA Really, a troll factory-linked propaganda organisation in Washington DC.

Shortly after I published my post, I received an unhinged comment from someone named Michael using a USA Really e-mail address, in a seeming attempt to persuade reporters to disregard what I’d written.

“Are you semicrazy person?” the comment read. “Please, go see a doctor help the society and yourself. May be you just have a vivid imagination. I’m not sure, but it looks like you took too much acid (aka LSD) in your childhood…Collegues! ATTENTION! He sucks! He is lame, it’s dangerous to use his info. It will be definetely fake-news then.”

This week, Malkevich had scheduled a flash mob event to take place at the White House to celebrate Donald Trump’s 72nd birthday, and a roundtable event at a WeWork office space opposite the White House to discuss fake news (WeWork is a company that rents private offices).

Malkevich was forced to significantly scale down the flash mob event—which originally included a symphony orchestra—after applying for the wrong permit. Then, according to Russia’s Federal News Agency, which is overseeing the USA Really project, Malkevich was removed and banned from re-entering the WeWork office space he’d rented. WeWork declined to comment for this item.

Alexander Malkevich stood outside the White House on Thursday, braving the 85-degree heat in a skintight long-sleeve shirt with Che Guevara’s face emblazoned on it. Thursday was flag day, as well as the birthdays of Malkevich, Che and President Donald Trump, and he was leading a very small political rally.

Like most of Russia’s efforts to manipulate U.S. politics, the website traffics in content on divisive issues such as promoting secessionist movements in the U.S. — the same kinds of activities that caused a furor when they were exposed as having influenced the 2016 presidential election.

Malkevich’s hopes of generating a similar furor now, two years later, seem to have degenerated into self-parody, however. Instead of actors with signs and musicians playing symphony music, as Malkevich had envisioned, he stood among tourists and “Free Tibet” protesters with only his business partner, Alex Dolgonos.

“It’s hot out here, but it’s much hotter in some of those rooms we’ve been kicked out of,” Malkevich said.

[…]

USA Really has a variety of links to Russia. The domain name for USA Really was registered privately from a Russian address, and promoted by the Federal News Agency, which is allegedly owned by “Putin’s Chef,” restaurateur oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was among 13 Russians indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for their campaign to sow discord before the 2016 U.S. election. Since April, the jobs section of the Federal News Agency’s website has been recruiting English-speaking journalists for USA Really.

USA Really’s monthlong campaign in the U.S. has hit roadblocks in recent days, according to a statement of grievances from Malkevich posted on the Federal News Agency website. Facebook removed USA Really’s page, and according to Malkevich, Twitter has imposed restrictions on its account.

Malkevich told NBC News that he’s working on his English and that he’s staffing up for bureaus in New York and Washington. He also said USA Really wouldn’t repeat troll farm tactics of impersonating Americans on social media, while denying knowing anyone involved in the embroiled Internet Research Agency,

“We want to do everything legal,” he said.

Malkevich said he was enjoying his time in Washington, despite being disappointed at what he called “Red Scare” books in places like the gift shop of the Spy Museum about a half-mile from the White House.

“I see all of these stories about how 10 Russian hackers changed the election. Where is CIA? Where is FBI? They can’t stop 10 Russian hackers?” he said.

Malkevich chatted amiably about his venture. But under the unrelenting heat, he grew agitated when asked about the Internet Research Agency.

“I like America, but I keep getting into problems with all of these officials,” Malkevich said. “And now all of these people asking about the Russian trolls.”

Alexander Malkevich might be the new face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to subvert U.S. democracy. Or he might be a bumbling provocateur.

Malkevich, a Russian media executive with ties to the Kremlin, arrived in Washington this week to launch USA Really, an English-language news site that spreads the kind of disinformation and discord attributed to Russian trolls in a high-profile indictment earlier this year.

[…]

On Wednesday of this week, he showed up at a coffee shop in downtown Washington, D.C., for his first interview with an American reporter. He wore a white T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of the Russian foreign minister looking irritated and the phrase “debili blyat,” which roughly translates as “fucking morons.”

“This is my answer for these strange people that are frightened by us,” Malkevich said.

His new website is no less sophomoric. In the past few days, it has included stories headlined “Man Served His Friends Tacos Made From His Severed Limb” and “No Sex for Cops in Louisiana.”

Malkevich is a former manager of local TV and radio stations in Russia. He’s also a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, which advises the government on policymaking.

He says he was approached by a group of Russian journalists and businessmen to found USA Really after he gave a speech to the Russian Civic Chamber, a parliamentary advisory body, about the need to establish more media outlets abroad.

“We only have a few media working abroad. It’s so hard for them to stand against all this oppression,” he said.

[…]

“Now we see that there is real freedom of speech in Russia,” he said. “But a Russian media company cannot do anything in the USA.”

Social media websites, heavily criticized for serving as a megaphone for the Russian disinformation campaigns during the U.S. election campaign, have been aggressively policing USA Really.

Facebook shut down the website’s page within a day of its launch in May. On Twitter, USA Really has been prevented from posting direct links to its website, forcing it to route articles through Google Plus posts.

Malkevich said the site has been able to post photos on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, but it is blocked from adding captions and hashtags.

The reasons for the crackdown are not totally clear. While the website is connected to individuals and entities subject to U.S. sanctions and indictments, through its affiliation with Federal News Agency, Malkevich is not included on either list and was able to enter the United States on a tourist visa.

[…]

Malkevich admitted that he’s had difficulty recruiting native English speakers to work for the publication, but he has high hopes for the project.

“I want to make this media interesting and very much involved in the everyday life of Americans,” he said. “And maybe, in some years I can be a Pulitzer Prize winner.”

Toward the end of the interview, an employee wiping down the table behind him splashed cleaning fluid on his phone.

“Spies from the FBI. Poison,” he joked.

“Of course, I am being sarcastic,” he added. “But there is still some concern.”

A Russian government adviser who aims to wage an “information war” in the U.S. and Europe is running a new media venture a block from the White House that cybersecurity experts say has ties to the country’s infamous disinformation apparatus.

In April, Russia’s Federal News Agency (FAN) announced the creation of an American outlet called “USA Really.” Its website and accompanying social media pages sprang up in May and quickly began promoting a mid-June rally to be held in front of the White House in protest of “growing political censorship… aimed at discrediting the Russian Federation.”

At the helm of the project is Alexander Malkevich, a Russian media executive and a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, a body created by President Vladimir Putin in 2005 to advise government policymaking.

Malkevich sits on the Civic Chamber’s commission on mass media and communication. He is also running the show at USA Really, according to an FAN video on the project. The video features shots of a USA Really office space adorned with an American flag, a Confederate flag, and a framed “Make America Great Again” poster of President Donald Trump.

[…]

USA Really’s “flash mob” protest was initially scheduled for June 14, in what it says was a recognition of Flag Day and President Donald Trump’s birthday. But rather than applying for a rally protest with D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), which oversees such events, it asked the city’s film and television office for a film permit, the type that movie studios obtain before taping scenes on D.C. streets.

The FAN posted a copy of an email from the film office, which referred USA Really to the MPD. “Your permit application is denied,” the email read, “since we’ve determined that this is a rally more so than a filming.”

The FAN claimed on its website that it subsequently spoke with the MPD, which also denied them a permit and warned that they had alerted the CIA, which does not operate on U.S. soil, of USA Really’s activities. MPD told Dean Sterling Jones, a Belfast-based investigative writer who’s followed the USA Really case for weeks and first reported Malkevich’s involvement, that it had received no requests for a rally permit from the group.

[…]

For all its talk of combating misinformation, USA Really appears to be as invested in vendettas as it is in truth-telling. On Saturday, Jones received a diatribe from someone named Michael using a USA Really email address in response to a post he’d written on the group.

“Are you a semicrazy person?” Michael asked, according to a copy of the message provided to The Daily Beast. “WFT is wrong with you? How can you suck so much with fact interpretation?”

Asked about that exchange, Michael, who said he was emailing from Moscow, struck a conciliatory tone. “Actually, I appreciate Dean’s work a lot so I offered her to write to us too,” he wrote, apparently unclear of Jones’ gender. “So I cannot tell you what I objected in her beautiful articles.”

A Russian government adviser has launched a new media venture aimed at waging an “information war” in the United States and Europe. The outlet, called “USA Really,” attempted to hold a White House rally in protest of “growing political censorship … aimed at discrediting the Russian Federation,” but its permits were denied. (Daily Beast)

— “New Russian Media Venture Wants to Wage ‘Information War’ in Washington, D.C.,” by The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay: “In April, Russia’s Federal News Agency (FAN) announced the creation of an American outlet called ‘USA Really.’ Its website and accompanying social media pages sprang up in May and quickly began promoting a mid-June rally to be held in front of the White House in protest of ‘growing political censorship… aimed at discrediting the Russian Federation.’

“At the helm of the project is Alexander Malkevich, a Russian media executive and a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, a body created by President Vladimir Putin in 2005 to advise government policymaking.”

— A Russian troll factory-linked media campaign headed by a Putin-approved government consultant claims to have an office facing the White House

For the past month, I’ve blogged extensively about “Wake up, America!”—a mysterious “Russian ops” campaign that recently made headlines after it attempted to organise a flash mob event at the White House to celebrate Donald Trump’s upcoming 72nd birthday.

The event was advertised via USAReally.com, a disinformation website that called on “every patriot” to “come up to the White House on June 14th at 2:00 p.m. to congratulate America.”

According to a press release published in April, USA Really was created by the Federal News Agency (FAN), a pro-Kremlin Russian media company that says it has an office “in the White House business center opposite the US president’s residence.”

Organisers appeared to cancel the event—which would have included a symphony orchestra—after mistakenly applying for a film permit instead of the proper rally permit, although an article published earlier this week on the FAN website claims the cancellation came as a result of a conspiracy by US authorities to censor its free speech rights (banners advertising the rally are still up on the USA Really website).

FAN has been digitally traced to the Mueller-indicted Internet Research Agency (IRA)—better known as the Russian troll factory—by US cyber-security firm FireEye and open-source researcher Lawrence Alexander, among others. In 2015, Adrian Chen of The New York Times even visited the IRA’s offices in St. Petersburg and found that FAN was operating out of the same building.

Now for the latest twist in the story: According to a video published Tuesday on FAN’s YouTube channel, the “Wake up, America!” campaign is being headed by the deputy chairman of the Russian government’s Commission on Mass Media and Mass Communications, Alexander Malkevich.

The video appears to have been filmed from inside USA Really’s Russian office, which is adorned by US and Confederate flags, a colour-coded map of the US, and a framed picture of Donald Trump.

The Commission on Mass Media is a branch of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation (OPRF), which was created by Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2004 to facilitate “interaction between the federal government, the local governments, and the people of Russia in order to ensure that their interests are taken into account, and that their rights and freedoms are protected when creating and implementing government policy.”

Despite OPRF’s claim that it helps “strengthen civil society institutions as democracy institutions,” the chamber has been described by Russian critics as a “smokescreen” intended to “distract the public’s attention from what is a real diminishment of democracy,” and “a calculated move to diminish the power of parliament and strengthen the Kremlin’s centralization of power.”

Yesterday, Malkevich used the OPRF website to publish an anti-US screed complaining about the negative attention “Wake up, America!” has received in the US, and demanding that the Russian government take legislative action against US news and social media platforms.

Our Commission has talked a lot about the discriminatory approach that applies to the Russian media in Europe and the United States. And we have repeatedly made proposals on this topic that Russia needs more mass media in order to fight back in the world information war.

In May, in a test mode, a group of enthusiasts launched the information resource “USA Really”. Objective media, young, sincere media. It was honestly and officially announced that he would work in the English-speaking zone, no media outlets violated any laws, only official information, proven materials, no fictions, open real journalism was published. And what happened?

After the site worked for several days in a test mode (ie without advertising campaigns and mass mailings about the opening of the resource, it was simply debugging work processes), the Facebook account was completely destroyed, Twitter introduced a number of restrictions: in fact, journalists can not He publish publications with direct links to his site.

But there was a blog in LiveJournal (I want to emphasize that this social network is run by a Russian company), which began to develop, Twitter missed direct links to LJ posts, but it did not last long, for a maximum of 24 hours, after which this blog was also blocked.

It is clear that this is illegal and this is arbitrary, since the administrators of the blog received no warning messages from the management of the social network. And this makes you ask a whole series of questions.

First, there is no vaunted democracy and freedom of speech in the US. The American authorities, without ceremony, without giving any reasons, clean out the information field from everything they disagree with and from all those who do not cuddle or crouch before them.

But, once again, why does the Russian company support US sanctions? A law on counter-sentences has been introduced, at the highest level, the introduction of criminal responsibility for those who are ready to support these sanctions on the territory of our country is being discussed.

Does this mean that the leadership of SUP media should go to jail for supporting the policy that the US authorities are leading against Russia?

With the so-called “freedom of the media” in America everything is clear, because it simply does not exist. But it is fully present in Russia – only in some perverted forms. On the territory of our country, not only the American media that regularly publish libel, but also their subsidiaries, who tell us very coolly and with a spark that Siberia should secede from Russia, that the Crimea is not Russian land and so on. They work in the Russian legal field, they quietly conduct their groups in Russian social networks, they are not blocked, although there is a violation on violation and violation drives.

It turns out that Americans can work for us quietly, but we do not. There is discrimination, and with this you need to do something at the highest governmental level. We, both as a journalistic community and as public figures, are certainly outraged by this imbalance – and we are asking the State Duma, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Government to support the interests of the media, which are insolently flouted by American companies, and the US authorities, which dictate to them, and to all of us, thus, our will.

In a separate post, FAN’s editor-in-chief Yevgeny Zubarev called on Russia’s state media regulator Roskomnadzor to censor “foreign social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.”

Although Zubarev refused to disclose the names of FAN’s investors, a 2017 investigation by Russian media group RBK found evidence that FAN might be funded by “Putin’s chef” Yevgeny Prigozhin, one of 13 Russian nationals indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller in February for allegedly attempting to interfere in the 2016 US election.

Update, June 10, 2018: USA Really is holding an event hosted by Alexander Malkevich at WeWork White House on June 15. The event is titled “’Fake News’ in the ‘Digital Technology Age.’” WeWork White House is located one block from the White House.

— It appears that organisers of the event applied for the wrong permit, before accusing US authorities of conspiring against them

Update, June 14, 2018: The USA Really website has posted a new article stating that the flash mob will go ahead “in downtown Washington not far from The White House.”

Last month, I scooped the story that a media campaign linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), —better known as the Russian troll factory—had planned to flash mob the White House on June 14, Donald Trump’s 72nd birthday, to mark the launch of its new website, USAReally.com.

• The troll campaign has apparently cancelled its plans, having applied for the wrong permit (banners advertising the rally are still up on the USA Really website);

• The campaign says it’s currently operating from an office opposite the White House.

• Bonus scoop: The campaign says it had hired a symphony orchestra to play at the rally.

The cancellation was announced via the Federal News Agency (FAN), the pro-Kremlin Russian website behind the campaign. FAN has been traced back to the IRA by open-source researcher Lawrence Alexander. Russian news websites including RBK Group and The Moscow Times have also published stories linking FAN to the IRA.

“The Federal News Agency (FAN) planned to open in Washington its affiliated project, the information agency ‘USA Really. Wake Up Americans,’” an article on the FAN website reads. “The office of the news agency USA Really is located in the White House business center opposite the US president’s residence and we officially requested permission for the celebration, knowing the delicacy of the situation – after all, we invited a symphony orchestra, prepared invitations to many people, and thought out the opening ceremony.”

“However, the Metropolitan Police Department categorically denied the information agency USA Really in coordinating the holiday action. Moreover, in addition to a written refusal, we were told by telephone that ‘the local police and intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have been informed [of the campaign] and will respond to all challenges on your part.’”

Here’s what the DC Metropolitan Police Department’s Director of Communications told me when I asked if his department had denied USA Really’s rally permit:

Dean,

Our Special Operations Division Planning Office has not received a request for a permit to be issued related to this. You may want to contact the National Park Service’s Permit Office as well as they also issue permits.

We have received your permit request and are referring you to the Metropolitan Police Department for a rally/public gathering permit. I’m not sure which would suit your project – but it appears to me that filming this project may only be incidental to the ‘rally’ aspect which you requested.

Therefore your permit application is denied since we’ve determined this is a rally more so than a filming.

Sincerely,

Ray Williams / Locations, Resources & Film Permit Manager
Office of Cable Television, Film, Music and Entertainment
Government of the District of Columbia
1899 9th St NE (HQ)1 202-671-0066 main

In a separate article on the campaign’s US website, USAReally.com, the campaign accused “Deep State” security forces working from within the US government of conspiring with journalists and social media platforms to violate its First Amendment rights.

“The case surrounding the suppression, or outing, if you will, of ‘USA Really’ might be looked at closely, and at the end of the day described as just one more instance where certain political powers have shoved themselves into the democratic processes of the American people,” the post reads.

“This project hasn’t even officially started yet, but the deep state and the security services have already launched into their standard defamation campaign, and have started up again with their typical tropes and tired labels that we saw pop up around the time of the last presidential election, where any line contrary to the anti-constitutional and pro-imperialist one is magically ‘fake news.’”

USA Really’s Facebook and LiveJournal accounts were both recently suspended following the widely seen reports by McClatchy and Rachel Maddow.

— The event will mark the launch of the factory’s new grassroots anti-US media campaign

It’s been a busy few months for the Internet Research Agency (IRA), better known as the Russian troll factory.

In February, the Justice Department issued an indictment to prosecute 13 IRA “kremlebots” for allegedly meddling in the 2016 US election. Since then, the company has been banned from several US social media websites, and details of its operations have been exposed by the media.

But now the IRA is fighting back with the launch of its “Wake up, America!” campaign, which aims to challenge “the hegemony of the US authorities” by “promoting crucial information and problems, which are hushed up by the conventional American media controlled by the establishment and oligarchy of the United States.”

To mark the launch of the campaign, the IRA is organising a flash mob event to take place outside the White House on June 14, Donald Trump’s 72nd birthday. The plans were announced via USAReally.com, a pro-Kremlin propaganda website that has been traced back to the IRA by open-source researcher Lawrence Alexander.

“June 14th is not just the birthday of the US President,” a message on the website reads. “On this day we officially starts our project ‘USA Really’: the honest media about what is really happening around. We invite all Americans – all who cares about the country – to celebrate this. Come up to the White House on June 14th at 2:00 p.m. to congratulate America. We’re calling for every patriot! Wake Up Americans!”

The IRA previously organised a number of political rallies during the 2016 election, including an anti-Trump rally in New York that was attended by documentary filmmaker Michael Moore.

Despite being funded by Russian money, the campaign is being promoted as a grassroots US effort, and a message on the USA Really website welcomes “participants from every state with no matter of social status, political engagement and ideological preferences.”

The website, which was registered last month but only went live earlier this week, includes articles lifted from mainstream US news outlets and other, more nefarious sources.

One article, originally published by Russian state-backed news agency Sputnik, takes aim at the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

“All of America is sick and tired of hearing about the Mueller probe, with everyone having already made up their own minds by now about whether Trump’s guilty of ‘colluding’ with Russia or not,” the article reads.

Another article, originally published by Alabaman white supremacist, neo-Confederate organisation League of the South, advocates for the secession of Louisiana from the US.

“For generations, the peoples of the States have tried to impart a divine aura to political documents like the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, to make them the measuring rod for societal norms,” the article reads, “but this has led to the collapse of Christian faith. Leaving the U.S. would allow Christianity to take its rightful place again as the preeminent unifying and invigorating cultural force in Louisiana.”

The League of the South did not respond when asked if it gave permission for USA Really to re-publish its article.

Despite the website’s anti-Mueller leanings, a few articles suggest an emerging anti-Trump bias, including a mocking article titled “Barack Obama Laughs at the Trump’s Administration,” which appears to have been sourced from a similarly worded Fox News item, and another article criticising Ivanka Trump for “a provocative photo” she recently posted to Instagram.

It’s not the first time the IRA has criticised Trump.

Earlier this month, LiveJournal accounts controlled by the IRA published anti-US screeds railing against “the stupid and random orders of Donald Trump.” The posts came in response to a series of recent controversial US foreign policy decisions that stirred tensions in Israel, Iran, and North Korea.

It’s unclear if the anti-Trump posts are merely intended to “sow discord,” as concluded by the Justice Department in February, or if they also represent an ideological pivot away from Trump.

Meanwhile, lawyers for the IRA are contesting the Justice Department’s indictment. In a legal filing posted earlier this month, lawyers for the IRA stated that their clients didn’t know their actions were illegal, and that Mueller’s team had failed to show “that the Defendant acted willfully, in this case meaning that Defendant was aware of the FEC and FARA requirements.”

The Federal News Agency, an Internet Research Agency-linked and pro-Kremlin website, has been recruiting “English-speaking journalists and authors” to work on its “Wake Up, America!” campaign, according to investigative-reporting blog Shooting the Messenger. The campaign’s purpose is to stand against “hegemony of the U.S. authorities in the information field,” the Federal News Agency claims. “Due to the growing political censorship imposed by the United States, there remains less and less of information sources that are not under control of the U.S. authorities,” an announcement on the website read. “In this regard, U.S. citizens cannot receive objective and independent information about events occurring on the territory of America and throughout the world.” The campaign was launched last week, and asks applicants to send their résumés to a Russian email address. Internet Research Agency trolls also been promoting the campaign from LiveJournal accounts, as they have been banned from Facebook and Instagram.

The Federal News Agency, a pro-Russian website linked to the Internet Research Agency, has been recruiting “English-speaking journalists” to work on its “Wake Up, America!” campaign, according to Shooting the Messenger.

From the announcement:

Due to the growing political censorship imposed by the United States, there remains less and less of information sources that are not under control of the U.S. authorities. In this regard, U.S. citizens cannot receive objective and independent information about events occurring on the territory of America and throughout the world.

For those of you who are looking for a job, there’s a Russian troll farm that’s recruiting English-speaking journalists. Uh, you know, need a few extra bucks? It’s called the Federal News Agency, which—Federal News Agency used to be the name of, like, a transcription service here in Washington DC, so when I first saw that I was, like, “wait, what?” Anyway, Federal News Agency, a pro-Russian website linked to the Internet Research Agency, has been recruiting English-speaking journalists to work on its “Wake Up, America!” campaign. This is according to Shooting the Messenger. Here’s the ad—I’m going to read aloud from the ad:

Due to the growing political censorship imposed by the United States, there remains less and less of information sources that are not under control of the U.S. authorities. In this regard, U.S. citizens cannot receive objective and independent information about events occurring on the territory of America and throughout the world.

What!? Come on. “Under control of U.S. authorities”—Russia, come on, be smarter than that. Be smarter than a Russian troll, Russia. Anyway, so they are hiring. If you dream of working for a Russian troll farm, you can check it out.

— The “Wake up, America!” campaign will “focus on promoting information and problems that are hushed up by major American publications controlled by the US political elite”

It’s been a rough couple of months for the Internet Research Agency (IRA).

In February, 13 members of the so-called “Russian troll factory” were indicted for allegedly interfering in the 2016 U.S. election. Since then, the company has been banned from various social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.

But now the IRA is fighting back with the launch of its “Wake up, America!” campaign, which promises to challenge “the hegemony of the US authorities” by “promoting information and problems that are hushed up by major American publications controlled by the US political elite.”

“Due to the growing political censorship imposed by the United States, there remains less and less of information sources that are not under control of the US authorities,” reads an announcement on the FAN website. “In this regard, US citizens cannot receive objective and independent information about events occurring on the territory of America and throughout the world.”

A third post, published under the pseudonym “qkempek,” accused the U.S. government of “trying to deprive the audience of many thousands of opportunities to receive relevant and resonant news from the Russian Federation and the world from the media, which speak about it honestly and openly.”

— San Diego presidential hopeful Matthew Pinnavaia was endorsed by Russian propagandists after he criticised U.S. foreign policy towards North Korea. Here he shares his outreach efforts to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un

In 2015, Pinnavaia made headlines in Russia after he sent an open letter to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, criticising U.S. foreign policy towards the Jong-un dictatorship. The story was subsequently peddled online by race-baiting propagandists working for the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll factory that was recently indicted for allegedly meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Headline: “A participant in the pre-election presidential race in the US apologised to Kim Jong-un for ‘Interview’” (source)

After I published my post, Pinnavaia contacted me to share a second letter he sent to Jong-un in August last year criticising America’s “arrogance and belligerence,” and requesting to visit North Korea “as a future President of the United States of America.”

Pinnavaia’s correspondence included a seven-point “Treaty of Non-Engagement” calling for “a cessation of any, and or, all belligerent, harsh, and immoral international political statements, as composed and emanating from the Office of the President of the United States of America…which can be interpreted as hostile ‘Words of War’ towards the Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).”

In an e-mail, Pinnavaia said: “I believe my beloved country, the United States of America, has not adhered to the first American Foreign Policy of our beloved father of our country, President George Washington.”

Pinnavaia said his treaty, which he also sent to South Korean president Moon Jae-in, has led to “a diplomatic breakthrough” between North and South Korea (Pinnavaia didn’t get a response from either governments).

Asked about his endorsement by Russian trolls, Pinnavaia said: “When I write about American Foreign Policy, I speak the truth, therefore, any propaganda that is used in conjunction with the truth that I speak, does not contain value.”

Pinnavaia said he is currently setting-up a website for his political party, The George Washington Party, in preparation for his 2020 presidential run.

In January 2015, Pinnavaia made headlines in Russia after a major news agency,TASS, reported that he’d written an open letter to Kim Jong-un apologising to the North Korean dictator on behalf of the U.S.

The cause for apology: comments made by then-U.S. President Barack Obama in support of The Interview, a 2014 satirical film about the Jong-un dictatorship, after it was pulled from cinemas by distributor Sony (the company later reversed its decision).

A member of the presidential election race in the US has written an open letter to Kim Jong-un and the people of the DPRK with apologies for the scandalous Hollywood film “Interview” in which a fictional attempt on the North Korean leader is played out. Matthew Pinnavaia, who applied to participate in the 2016 elections, accuses the current inhabitant of the White House of “immoral politics” in relation to the DPRK.

“The endorsement by the President of the United States of America of a film that reflects the [assassination] of a foreign leader or president is a tragic misdemeanour for the history of my beloved country, and is definitely an amoral and tragic chapter in the history of American foreign policy,” says the letter, a copy of which was received by TASS.

“President Barack Obama, the head of the Japanese corporation Sony Kaz Hirai and the president of the American corporation Sony Pictures Entertainment Michael Lynton are responsible for the immoral policy towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” Pinnavaia writes. His letter begins with the words “dear Kim Jong-un,” and ends with an assurance that he himself “does not approve” an attempt on “the foreign leader.”

Attempts to contact the author of the letter by phone have not yet been marked with success. According to the official website of the US Federal Electoral Commission, 56-year-old Matthew Pinnavaia, who lives in California, applied to participate in the upcoming US presidential election on June 20, 2014. However, this formal step does not guarantee that his name will be included in the ballot paper.

The story quickly caught the attention of the Internet Research Agency, the Russian propaganda factory that was recently indicted for allegedly meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Leaked documents obtained by Russian newspaper My Area (MR7.ru) show the now-infamous troll factory instructed its army of “kremlebots” to spread the story on LiveJournal, using Pinnavaia’s letter as a pretext to promote a “negative attitude to the foreign policy of the state, conducted by Obama” (a database of the factory’s LiveJournal profiles is available to view by clicking here).

[Pinnavaia] apologised not only for himself, but, as it turned out, for the greater part of Americans. He became a gray cardinal who gave publicity to the people’s thoughts.

It went on to speculate about how the incident might affect the 2016 election, while commenting disparagingly about “the first and inglorious black president.”

It will be interesting to observe this directly at the elections. Obama’s policy has completely failed. Trying to defend freedom of speech, Obama dug himself, probably the last trench of the first and inglorious black president. Oh, Martin Luther [King] would not thank him, alas.

Another post, published under the pseudonym “winter_kinder,” included a racist rant comparing Obama to “hefty negro” Mike Tyson.

[Jong-un] about a year ago calmly said: “If you do not take your hands off my country, I’ll send my favorite NUCLEAR ROCKETS, BLACK !!!” It’s as stupid as to approach Mike Tyson and ask: “Hey, hefty Negro, can you tell me your sister’s number?”

It went on to trumpet the virtues of respecting “other people’s traditions,” describing Pinnavaia’s apology as “the right step.”

[Pinnavaia] generally considered it necessary to apologise to the leader of North Korea, which, in my opinion, was the right step. After all, I very much doubt that the States would be delighted if Iran shot a film about an attack somewhere in Manhattan, as a result of which their head of state is killed. In short, I even have my own list of films that can not be, just can not be watched because of their extreme cheerfulness and disrespect for other people’s traditions.

Yet another post, published under the pseudonym “vince_crane,” hoped that Jong-un would bomb cinemas that showed the offending film.

[Not] all residents of the States approve of their president (in this situation, to aggravate relations with the DPRK…is simply stupid), on the contrary, Obama’s ratings say the opposite! Yes, and one of the candidates for the presidency of the United States…has already accused the current head of state Barack Obama of “immoral policy” towards the DPRK and sent an open letter of apology to Kim Jong-un…

It’s a pity that this Pinnavaia has not yet become president (and it is unlikely to become).

It’s unclear if Pinnavaia made the comments attributed to him as he didn’t reply to a request for comment, although a second article by TASS said the agency had corresponded with him and that he was “preparing another letter…addressed to the leadership of the Russian Federation” concerning “the economic sanctions imposed by Washington.”

You can read more leaked documents from inside the Russian troll factory by clicking here.